Heretofore machinery for automatically forming, filling and sealing cartons for packaging, for example, milk, included a transfer mechanism for moving formed cartons, one at a time, from a carton-forming turret to a conveyor which advanced the cartons through filling and carton top sealing stations. This transfer was carried out while both the turret and the conveyor were in the dwell portion of their cycles. lt is always desirable to increase production rates, however, this was impractical to achieve by simply increasing the indexing rate of this long conveyor because the increased number of stop and starts could cause spilling or foaming of the product, increased synchronization requirements for other interfacing components of the machinery, and would increase wear and tear on the long, expensive conveyor likely resulting in excessive maintenance and premature replacement.
In order to increase the output of the machinery without increasing the indexing rate of the conveyor, it has been proposed to double the turret indexing rate while maintaining the conveyor indexing rate. One carton is moved to the conveyor from a transfer system which receives a carton during each dwell period of the turret, while the conveyor is stopped in dwell. The next carton is pushed by the transfer system into the conveyor "on the fly" during the index portion of the conveyor's cycle of operation. It will be appreciated that there are difficulties inherent in attempting to move a somewhat delicate item, such as a thin wall formed paperboard carton into a moving conveyor. Additionally, since the transfer system must be positioned beneath the turret and at the end of the conveyor, the turret cannot be positioned in its usual vertically overlapping relationship with the conveyor. Thus, the use of this prior art transfer system tends to elongate the machinery.
For further information regarding the structure and operation of such prior art carton forming, filling and sealing machinery, reference may be made to U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,486,423 and 4,456,118.